Lotos
by Vive La Bagatelle
Summary: Alison Cheny is relieved when the Doctor finally agrees to an excursion to the Holiday world of Lotos. But, when she gets involved in the affairs of two of the Doctor's former companions, things spiral out of hand.
1. state of grace

Using the characters from the webcast "The Scream of the Shalka" and set after the same. Alas, I own nothing.

* * *

It was the end of another long dog day in the TARDIS, and simulated day was turning to simulated night, dragging every moment of its simulated way.

In the kitchen the lights faded themselves to a level meant to indicate "early evening" and Alison Cheney finished her toast, delicately mopping up each of the crumbs left on her plate and the work-surface with the tip of a moistened index finger and flicking them into the sink. She finished her tea, and washed up the plate and mug by hand instead of putting them into the dishwasher, in order to pass a few extra seconds.

Then she put the peanut butter back in the cupboard, thought better of it, retrieved the jar, took a spoon out of a drawer and began to eat.

When spoonful number three had just been transferred from the jar to her mouth, Alison glanced up at the clock. 6.30. How predictable. It always seemed to be 6.30 in the TARDIS, as far as Alison could see, always interminably afternoon, like in that Tennyson poem she had read at school. She decided to try and find the Master, acknowledging that it wasn't much of a decision since she had done the same thing at about 6.30 for the past four weeks.

She left the kitchen, still absent-mindedly clutching the peanut butter and spoon and ambled through the TARDIS corridors, sticking her head around the doors to various rooms where she knew the Master would not be, just to render the whole thing less predictable. She, of course, knew that at 6.30 the Master would be in the Green Library. Predictably, he would tell her to go away, which, since he was the Master, meant, "Please stay". Alison would then stick around until she started to feel uncomfortable (a wholly predictable time-span of about half an hour) and would then ask him if he wanted her to leave. "By no means! You're most welcome to stay, my dear," he would predictably reply, and Alison would take the hint and go.

She would then spend about twenty aimless minutes wandering the TARDIS corridors deciding what to have for dinner. The she would cook and eat said dinner, then . . . perhaps a film, just like every other night for the past month.

It was a strange irony, Alison mused, that she had only accepted the invitation to travel aboard the TARDIS (could it even be considered an invitation, she wondered, since the Master had invited her by pretending not to invite her, and the Doctor had simply assumed she was coming along) because she had been so bored in Lannet, and yet the past six months had been filled with degrees of boredom that Alison would never have believed possible in even her gloomiest ponderings back in Lancashire. TARDIS life seemed to be composed of long dry spells of tedium, punctuated by intermittent bursts of extreme mortal peril. Although the mortal peril had tailed off a bit recently since the Doctor had, for the past month, flatly refused to materialize the TARDIS anywhere, preferring instead to float in the vortex, locked away with his Puccini records, his whisky bottles and various balls of untangleable circuitry, uncommunicative with, and largely unseen by, the ship's other occupants.

Frankly, she as well have stayed at home with Joe and her Mum – at least in Lannet you could go for a walk, or down the pub to break the monotony – as be confined on a spaceship with two middle-aged aliens who seemed to view her role as being only that of audience and arbiter to their endless quarrels. At least in Lannet it would have been her choice to be bored.

"Ah, Miss Cheney!" drawled a smooth voice somewhere in the corridor behind her.

Alison gasped, genuinely surprised, although more by the break in routine than because he had crept up on her (he always did that). The Master appeared at her side, carrying a large blue and white umbrella stand under one arm, and flashed her a grin that sparkled with malicious amusement.

""But . . But it's 6.30," she said lamely.

The Master's grin became broader and less malicious: "_In the afternoon they came unto and land/ In which it seemed always afternoon."_

"What are you doing with that?" Alison asked, pointing at the umbrella stand.

_"All round the coast the languid air did swoon . . ."_ he purred mellifluously to himself. Oh, this – I'm taking it back to the console room. It was in the Zeppelin hanger."

Alison smiled, "And how did it get into the Zeppelin hanger in the first place?"

"I put it there"

The Master was forever moving the umbrella stand out of the console room for seemingly no reason other than to drive the Doctor mad.

"I see," said Alison, feigning surprise.

"And I thought I'd put it back."

"Why?"

"Because it's been there five days and he hasn't noticed, which defeats the whole point of the exercise. Most tedious! And the Zeppelin hanger is really a most inconvenient location for it, makes it very difficult to pick up an umbrella on the way out. Not, of course, that I have any need of them, since I am not allowed out of the TARDIS.

Alison gave him a look that was more sympathetic than she had perhaps intended

"Nor, so it would seem, are you," he continued dryly, "Honestly, I feel about a hundred and twelve!"

"Why a hundred and twelve?" Alison enquired, "The last time I got grounded I was seventeen."

For a moment the Master looked as if he was going to make a cutting riposte, but he simply raised an immaculate eyebrow, sighed and strode off to the console room.

_"They sat them down upon that yellow sand/ Between the sea and moon upon the shore"_

Alison followed him at her own pace. After all, there was no rush; they had all the time in the world.

When she entered the console room the Master was by the TARDIS doors, lining the umbrella stand up so that it was parallel with the hat-stand, and grumbling to himself: "Comes to something when one can't even play a practical joke to relieve the monotony – I wouldn't put it past him to have a play with my circuitry, bypass my sense of humour chip or some such."

Alison leant back on the console and grinned. For all his faults – which were many and glaring – the Master could be very droll. She couldn't exactly say that she liked him, and she knew that he didn't like her (he gallantly told her so often enough), but they had develop a wary sort of comradeship in adversity, with each acting as a flimsy bulwark between the other and the tide of boredom that would otherwise have engulfed them. She sighed listlessly, turning to examine the TARDIS controls.

As a rule, Alison was not greatly interested in the workings of the TARDIS. She had long ago resigned herself to not understand how it did what it did – after all, what chance did a girl who had barely scraped GCSE Physics have with a machine that frequently baffled the combined brains of the Doctor and Master? – and had paid it no further mind. Until today, where she found herself studying the controls closely, for no other reason than, in her boredom, she had realized that here was something that she had never looked at properly, that could be new and fresh to her. The console was a riot of switches and levers and flashing lights, and at first she confined herself to counting them, seeing if there were any patterns in their layout. Then her eyes rested on a great round, smooth button and she found herself wondering what would happen if she were to press it. _"You'd break the TARDIS, most likely,"_ snapped the voice of common sense inside her head and, oddly, the thought did not appall her as much as it should have. _"I could press it,"_ a deeper voice countered, _"Just to see what happens. There's no-one to stop me. And if it did break the ship – which I doubt it would – well, that would be something. Something would have to happen!"_

Alison shivered and turned away from the console abruptly, not wishing to admit to herself how seriously she had considered pressing the damned button. She looked up and her eyes met the Master's. He was no longer fussing with the furniture, but gazing up at her with an odd, knowing look upon his face. There was an uncomfortable silence.

"Master, are you bored?" she blurted out, finally. It felt strange to address someone as 'Master', and she wondered what his real name was. Not that there would be any point asking him that, or any other question. Neither he nor the Doctor would give a straight answer if a circuitous and evasive one could be produced.

The Master turned to face her, cocking his head to one side wryly. "Shall I take that to mean that you yourself are bored, my dear Alison?" he said, striding towards the console

_"Ah, a question answered with a question"_ Alison though as she listened to his black dress shoes click smartly up the steps,_ "How very surprising!"_

"Yes, To Death." she said simply, opening her jar and spooning more peanut butter into her mouth.

"Miss Cheney, what are you doing?" the Master asked lightly, eyes fixed on the jar in Alison's hand and using that innocent tone he always adopted when he wished to tease her.

"I'm eating peanut butter out of the jar," she snapped, ingesting another mouthful to prove her point.

"That is quite the most disgusting thing I have ever seen, and I am going to have to ask you to desist immediately!"

"You what"

"And don't talk with your mouth full - disgusting! Now, give me the jar."

The Master held out a gloved hand toward Alison.

"No"

"Miss Cheney!" he repeated, like a mother whose child was screaming in the supermarket.

"Why should I?"

"Because I am the Master and you will obey me!" he answered, chuckling blackly, "Seriously, it's all for your own good, my dear. In the first place, you'll get fat – you're not being placed in nearly enough mortal peril to work it off. And secondly, because it is a disgusting habit, and not one I am prepared to indulge. The Doctor may be quite content to let you roam the TARDIS corridors like a savage, but I, perhaps unreasonably, feel that we have accepted some responsibility for your personal development while you are aboard! The jar, if you please!"

"Oh, sod off!" Alison spat, insulted and perplexed by his behaviour. Instantly, the Master's gloved hand grabbed the jar and tugged it away with android strength before she had quite registered what was happening. Alison made a grab for it, and he held it just out of reach, above his head.

"Hey! Give that back! You can't do that! I'll. I'll – "

"You'll what?" he snarled, and there was no longer any trace of his usual black silky humour in his voice, "You'll tell the Doctor? You'll switch me off?"

Alison stepped back, shocked and abashed, there was something in the Master's eyes that she did not like, something which simultaneously frightened her and made her ashamed. Did he really think that she'd run and tattle-tale to the Doctor?

Almost as if he had read her thoughts, he sneered, "Well, why don't you run along and tell him, you little brat? Off you go!"

"How dare you?" Do you really think I'd . . . ? You stupid bastard! Don't you dare say – "

She never got to finish her sentence, something changed in his eyes then and he hissed, "You threaten me?" and Alison was suddenly frightened, and forgetful that the Master was a machine, whose programming prevented him harming anyone, forgot that he was the one who chatted to her and made sure she got her tea in the morning, forgot that she had never quite believe the things that the Doctor had had to say about him. All she knew was that she did not wish to be in the console room any more, and she ran. Dimly, with her peripheral vision, she saw the Master launch the peanut butter jar at the back of her head. She did not doubt that his aim was good, and she waited to feel the impact. It did not come. There was a pop and a tinkle and she turned in time to see the jar explode in mid air, spattering its contents across the room and reigning glittering shards of glass down onto the console.

"Did you do that?" she stammered, "What ha - ?"

"State of grace," came a cold voice, and she turned again to see the Doctor standing by the entrance with a black remote in his outstretched hand.


	2. something unspoken

6.30 had rolled around again by the time Alison had zipped up her hold-all. She had entered the TARDIS with very little but the clothes she had been wearing, so it was quick work to pack up her belongings. Now her bag was filled with her clothes, her books, the petty personal effects that she had picked up on this planet or that planet in an effort to make her room aboard ship seem a little more like home. She had never quite succeeded in that, and now the room was stripped completely bare, with no decoration but the characterless, dully luminescent roundels on its creamy walls. Alison had re-made the bed, turning down the blankets primly, like a sheepish guest in a swanky hotel.

She sat on the floor, resting her cheek against one of the bed's freshly made hospital corners, and thought. She had already decided what she was going to say to the Doctor; how she would let him know that she wanted to be taken home. Those words were already chosen, right down to the goodbyes. She was now thinking about Lannet, about Joe, how she would explain to him that she was back but that, as far as he was concerned, that she was not back at all. She was trying to find words to explain how an arrival could also be a departure, and then . . . then she was trying to explain to herself what she would do next.

Alison could imagine with fair accuracy the look on Joe's face when he saw her back in Lannet, hear his grumbling remark about her having "fallen out with her new mates" as he put the kettle on for her tea, and she could already see how badly she would react to his thinking she had come home because of some stupid tiff.

After all, she wasn't leaving just because the Master had lobbed a jam jar at her. Alison came from a big family, she knew how to do volatile and plate hurling was part of her emotional repertoire, albeit a partshe did not care to dwell upon. She wanted to go because, well, because the incident had shattered her illusions, made her realize how unwelcome she was on the ship. As her mother would have been only too quick to point out, why stay with a man who doesn't like you and a man who doesn't speak to you? And, more that that, Alison had increasingly begun to ask herself what she was doing on the TARDIS in the first place. She had originally come aboard thinking she was running towards something, but now she wondered if she had been running away instead.

So she was packed to go and her bed was made, and when the Doctor strode into her room without knocking and sat down she didn't bat an eyelash. What was there to be embarrassed about? All those words were chosen, even the goodbyes.

"Are you alright, Alison?" he asked, spreading out the skirts of his coat.

"Yes," she answered truthfully, glad that she didn't have to lie to him.

He took out his pocket watch and began to play with it, twisting it on its chain and polishing the metal casing. "I'm sorry about what happened", he said, at length.

Why? You're not the one who chucked a glass at me! You shouldn't be the one apologizing!"

"The Master has never been particularly good at apologies."

"Surprise surprise."

"And really, deep down, it was all my fault."

He stood up abruptly and strode towards the door, hands behind his back: "Sometimes I think it was unfair of me to ask you to travel with me."

He paused and Alison held her breath. Was he going to offer to take her home of his own accord?

"I sometimes think that it was unfair of me to ask you to be my companion. Both of you."

"Both of us?" Alison enquired, raising an eyebrow.

""Yes," the Doctor affirmed, walking back towards the bed and sitting down again, "I understand that you and the Master might find it a little difficult keeping me company here. That you might find it a little tedious. Particularly this last month."

Alison was a little taken aback, both that the Doctor should have had any inkling of her own feelings, and by his remark on the Master. She had considered that not being able to leave the TARDIS might be difficult for the Master, or the knowledge that he had an off switch. But that it might be difficult for him to simply be the Doctor's companion, that she had never considered, and it intrigued her.

"Why?" she asked, because the Doctor seemed unusually communicative, and because she was leaving anyway, so it didn't matter.

"Why what?"

"Why would the Master find it difficult to be around you? To be your companion?" Alison knew as she asked the question that she was being somewhat disingenuous, sometimes she found it difficult enough being around the Doctor herself.

"Well, the Master and I haven't always got along terribly well – "

Alison chuckled as she though of the two Timelords' incessant bickering, "You don't always get along terribly well now!"

"True, true," grinned the Doctor ruefully, But, believe it or not, we used to be worse! You remember what I've told you about the Master, about what he is – No! No! About what he was. That's not what he is any more . . . Anyway, I imagine that it must be difficult for him, being what he was, to be around me, knowing that he owes me his life and that, in some odd way, I owe him mine. Especially given the limitations I've imposed on him."

"Yeah, I can imagine that knowing someone had you on remote control would piss you off a bit!" Alison had never quite forgotten the first time she had seen the Doctor switch their traveling companion off.

The Doctor bowed his head: "Sometimes I think that I may have acted rashly – selfishly, if you will."

"Why did you do it?"

"Alison, before we were enemies, the Master and I were friends."

"Close friends?"

"There is no-body in the universe that I would rather be friends with. Excepting you, of course!" he added with a mischievous laugh.

Alison laughed along with him, but her mind was on her next question. Just as she was leaving things had finally decided to get interesting.

"Doctor, why haven't you landed the TARDIS anywhere for so long?"

He started at his question, bit his lip and starred down at his watch again, twisting around on the chain.

"Is it because . . . it's just that . . . well, do you think that Master could have broken his programming?"

The Doctor almost smiled at that, "Whatever gives you that idea?"

"Well, you said he's programmed not to hurt anyone, but he had no trouble at all chucking that jar at my head."

"No indeed, he didn't! However, I've investigated the matter a little, and had a think about it myself, and I believe that, in his own, slightly twisted way, he was only trying to help."

Alison tried to imagine the logic that could consider flinging jars of condiments about the control room helpful and drew a blank: "Why did the jar explode?"

"The inside of every TARDIS is protected by something called the "State of Grace" which prevents the use of weapons. Something that the Master knows as well as I do."

"He could have forgotten."

"Yes," the Doctor conceded, "he could have forgotten. But I think not. I think that he was, in his own way, as I said, trying to help."

"And how on earth was pelting me with jam jars going to do that?"

"I believe that he was trying to provoke you, trying to make you attack him. More importantly, I think, he was trying to shock me. As far as I can make out, he was taking it quite badly being cooped up here, and he thought you were too . . . I suppose he wanted to demonstrate that I was sending you both a little stir crazy."

Alison suddenly found her mind filled with an image, that of herself standing before the console, looking at that wretched button, and she could almost hear again the voice that had urged her to press it, to break it. She shook her head to clear her thoughts, and another image swam to the top of her mind – the knowing look that had been on the Master's face when she had finally turned away from the controls.

She told the Doctor about the incident, despite – or perhaps because of – the fact that she was ashamed of it

" . . . and so what if he was trying to make me sabotage the TARDIS?" she finished.

"It's possible. The Master is an accomplished hypnotist, after all. But, on the other hand, we Timelords are intuitive – empathic, if you will - so it's perfectly possible that he simply picked up on what you were already thinking and decided, in his own inimitable and ridiculous way, to do something about it. You did say he'd been acting normally up to that point?"

"For the Master, yes. But why would I think such a thing?"

"I'm not sure. Perhaps . . ."

He returned to toying with his watch-chain, letting the words trail off into nothing.

"Perhaps?"

"Perhaps you are going stir crazy," he finished, rather too brightly, standing up to leave. As he did so he laid one long, elegant hand upon her hold-all: "I see you're all packed!"

Alison opened her mouth, ready to begin the speech she had prepared earlier, but the words seemed to freeze and shatter upon contact with the air, skittering and shivering away from her in a million brittle pieces

"How did you know?" she finally, lamely managed.

"We Timelords are intuitive, you know!" he said with a broad grin, and the long hand came up to rest on her shoulder, "Actually, I didn't know at all, I assumed. If you do wish to leave . . . well, might I ask you a favour before you go?"

"Of course, Doctor," Alison replied, finding the moment to be, now that it had come, much more than she had imagined.

"I would like us to take a holiday together, the three of us, to end things on the right note. I think we need that. No bickering, no mortal peril – "

Alison beamed, "Where abouts, Doctor?"

"Well, I've always promised the Master that we'd go to Bognor Regis . . ."


End file.
